Karlštejn and Konopiště in one day, plus an airport run
A Saturday in May. You are guiding 48 English-speaking clients on a one-day coach trip. The 49-seat coach and its single driver are hired from 07:30 to 20:00; the driver's duty begins at 07:30 with the pre-trip check. Route: Prague → Karlštejn (35 km) → Konopiště (55 km) → Prague (50 km). The client wants a 60-minute Karlštejn interior circuit, a 60-minute Konopiště interior circuit and a 60-minute lunch. Two real constraints: the coach cannot reach Karlštejn castle - it drops at the village car park and the castle is a 20-minute uphill walk - and the castle has confirmed a fixed 10:00 slot. At 18:00, after the group is back in Prague, the client asks whether the same coach and driver can take 20 of them to the airport at 21:30 for a night flight; the driver is already booked to start again at 06:00 the next morning.
1. Build a working timetable for the day that respects the fixed 10:00 slot, and say where the real bottleneck is and how you protect against it.
Read the worked answer
Work backwards from the fixed slot, not forwards from the departure time.
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 07:30 | Coach reports; driver pre-trip check; you check tickets and headcount |
| 08:00 | Depart Prague (no later - this is the hard departure) |
| 08:45 | Arrive Karlštejn village car park; WC |
| 08:45–09:10 | Uphill walk (20 min) with a 5-minute buffer |
| 09:10–09:55 | Exterior talk and photographs at the castle; assemble at the ticket office |
| 10:00–11:00 | Interior circuit |
| 11:00–11:25 | Walk down, headcount |
| 11:25–12:30 | Drive to Konopiště |
| 12:30–13:25 | Lunch |
| 13:30–14:30 | Konopiště interior |
| 14:45 | Depart |
| 15:45–16:00 | Back in Prague |
The bottleneck is the 20-minute uphill walk against a fixed 10:00 ticket, not the driving. Total driving is under three hours, so the coach is not the constraint; the group's legs and the ticket office are. Protection: (1) a hard 08:00 departure announced the day before; (2) a named “sweeper” who walks at the back and a headcount at the car park, at the castle gate and after the circuit; (3) on a May Saturday the village car park fills by about 09:30 - confirm the coach bay the day before and have the drop-off/pick-up point written into the driver's instructions; (4) build the 5-minute buffer into the walk, never into the castle slot, because the castle will not wait.
2. Answer the 21:30 airport question on driver-hours grounds, showing the arithmetic, and give three alternatives with their cost consequences.
Read the worked answer
The current day is legal; the next day is not.
Arithmetic: duty 07:30 → airport drop ~22:00 is about 14.5 hours of duty and roughly four hours of driving (well inside the 9-hour daily driving limit and the 4.5-hour continuous-driving rule, with a 45-minute break taken at lunch). So the evening run does not breach today's limits.
The breach is the daily rest: 11 consecutive hours must fall within each 24-hour period. Finishing at the airport around 22:30 (plus debrief, plus returning the coach) means the driver cannot lawfully begin before about 09:30. A booked 06:00 start the next morning gives roughly 7.5 hours. That is the refusal, and it is not negotiable by tipping the driver.
Alternatives:
- Separate licensed transfer - two minibuses or a 20-seat vehicle, roughly the cost of a second vehicle for one evening. Cleanest: the coach contract is untouched and the driver's rest is intact.
- Second driver on the same coach - only if the operator has one and the coach is free; you pay a second driver's evening rate plus handover time.
- Move the transfer earlier or the coach earlier - drop the coach at 18:00 (inside the 20:00 hire), send the airport group by pre-booked taxis at 18:30, and keep the driver's rest. Cheapest, but you must sell it to the client as a service improvement, not a refusal.
Whatever you choose, put the reason in writing to the client today: “the coach cannot do the 21:30 run because the driver is legally required to be rested before tomorrow's 06:00 departure.” That sentence protects the operator and pre-empts the “nobody told us” complaint.
3. You buy the coach, entrances and lunch in your own name and resell them. Given coach 15 500 CZK, guide 4 500 CZK, Karlštejn 240 CZK per adult, Konopiště 180 CZK per adult, lunch 290 CZK per adult (48 paying clients), what is your minimum price per person at a 15 % margin on cost, and why is the VAT treatment different from a plain guiding fee?
Read the worked answer
Cost base.
- Coach 15 500 + guide 4 500 = 20 000 CZK
- Karlštejn 48 × 240 = 11 520 CZK
- Konopiště 48 × 180 = 8 640 CZK
- Lunch 48 × 290 = 13 920 CZK
- Total cost = 54 080 CZK
Margin and price. 15 % of 54 080 = 8 112 CZK → selling price 62 192 CZK → 62 192 ÷ 48 = 1 296 CZK per person.
Why the VAT is different. Because you bought the components in your own name and resold them, this is a travel service under the margin scheme: tax is calculated from your mark-up only, not from the 62 192. If 8 112 is meant as a gross margin, VAT takes 8 112 × 21/121 ≈ 1 408 CZK and you keep about 6 704. If you want 15 % net, the mark-up must be grossed up (8 112 ÷ 0.8264 ≈ 9 815), giving a price of about 63 895, i.e. 1 331 CZK per person. Note also that you cannot deduct input VAT on the coach, entrances or lunch - the scheme replaces that.
A plain guiding fee, by contrast, is a normal service: 21 % on the whole fee, with input VAT deductible on your business costs. Mixing the two in one invoice without separating the guiding fee from the package creates a reconciliation problem at the first inspection. Answer the client with the per-person figure and state what it includes; the arithmetic is the easy part, the assumption about which side of the margin the VAT falls on is the one you have to be explicit about.